speculative decoding

Speculative decoding is discussed on WindowsForum.com as a way to speed up local LLM inference on Windows PCs. A tagged thread examines an LM Studio test in which Meta Llama 3.1 8B Instruct rose from 23.35 to 29.46 tokens per second when paired with Llama 3.2 1B Instruct as a draft model, a 26% gain across three warmed-up runs. The practical takeaway is that adding a second, compatible draft model can make a local model feel more responsive without changing the target model. The thread also questions whether such benchmarks justify preferring local inference over cloud APIs.